Jimmy and the Pulsating mass is an amazing game. It’s a more complicated, more rich Earthbound-style game that both pays respect to and improves on the original game.
It’s beautiful, it’s funny, it’s sad and it’s very, very deep.

Buy this game.

Then watch the LP because you are a working adult with an enormous games backlog and really don’t want to gamble on an RPG that’s not made by a major studio that’s 50 hours long.
Do it so you can have something to idly tool around and listen to while you dick with on your phone or other websites or even grindy games.

Because you shouldn’t miss this one.

What is Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass?

Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass was released in August of 2018. It was made by one person, Kasey Ozymy. He did EVERYTHING.

He made the graphics, the music, the design, everything except for some minor scripts.

It’s Jimmy’s adventure.

Trigger Warning: Some Body Horror/Gore

How Are We Going to Do This?

This will be video. If I can figure out how to capture gifs well enough to do it justice, I’ll post them. Because this game is imminently ripe for gifs.

I’m going to edit out a lot of repetitive combat and grind off-screen so you don’t have to watch it. But ideally we’ll see every fight at least once and they’re worth watching.

I’ll also be rotating commentators. More on that below.

If you have any criticism or want some changes made, give me a heads up.

I’ll try to do two tv-show length episodes (~22-30 minutes) every week. Usually Monday and Thursday. Sometimes Sunday or Wednesday. Never Late. The Grandma Express is always on time.

Spoilers?

No fucking spoilers. Period. If I miss something, PM me.

Let’s do it!

Cutscene Commentary On

There’s really no cutscene commentary because it’s not voiced. But if you just want a chill funtime experience with me not talking, I got you covered.

This game is incredible in every way. The game design/mechanics are basically perfect, the graphics fit the themes, the writing is a rollercoaster of emotions, the music is great… Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass can’t be recommended enough. I think it was the best game of 2018, and I’m looking forward to this Let’s Play.

I ideally try to keep a mix of men, women and non-binary people for different viewpoints. In actuality, what happens is mostly men sign up. And that’s good but if you identify as female or nonbinary, let me know and I’ll bump you up the list.

If there’s an LPer you want me to contact to see if I can get them to guest, let me know.

Since we’re about halfway between updates, I wanted to introduce a feature about Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass but it’s really about Kasey Ozymy.

Kasey was(is?) a really prolific poster and blogger over at RPGMaker so there’s years worth of his stuff over on a dev diary there, including forum posts to other RPGmaker users. A lot of you have shown interest in game design and game design process and while it’s not commercial design, it’s still interesting to look at how he was making it. Kasey is super supportive of fan work and I’ll link him this thread when there’s some more videos up.

The url for his rpgmaker posts Here for people who want to go digging. They’re mostly design focused.

quote:

Ah. The Revolting Blob. Sleek. Elegant. Pungent. The Revolting Blob lives in the dumpster inside all of us. The Revolting Blob shows up late to meetings. It eats onion rings and belches in your face. One time it was handed a book of manners, which was promptly eaten without a second glance.

When Jimmy transforms into the Revolting Blob, he gains the power to be universally hated by everyone. But, that’s okay. The Revolting Blob is immune to criticism. The Revolting Blob is resilient. The Revolting Blob will hock up something gross on you and laugh as you punch and kick his gooey body.

The Revolting Blob isn’t particularly strong or fast, but he has high defense, and he can solidify his body, making himself even tougher. He can also taunt enemies and make them sick, which will injure them every turn while the Revolting Blob absorbs their counterattacks with ease. A high-level Revolting Blob can increase his defense even further and get immune to the sick status effect.

Outside of battle, the Revolting Blob can use his taunt to immediately trigger an enemy encounter, so if you’re looking to hunt a specific monster, the Revolting Blob is perfect for the job. Being hated has its perks!

Nobody likes being the low man on the totem pole. But, if you remove the low man on the totem pole, what have you got? Just a new low man on the totem pole. And a shorter totem pole, but that doesn’t matter–nobody said these analogies were perfect. The important thing is that there’s always going to be a guy at the bottom, and, in the lucrative field of gooning, that guy is the Low-Level Goon.

As a Low-Level Goon, you’re going to have to deal with a variety of odd jobs: knocking off liquor stores, roughing up the homeless, throwing rocks at windows, hand-washing everyone’s leather jackets–it’s not an easy or particularly fulfilling life, but you’ve got to start somewhere.

Because of the wide range of jobs a Low-Level Goon must perform, he’s become a pretty well-rounded guy. His lack of education means he’s not the brightest bulb in the box, but he’s physically capable and surprisingly lucky. His skill set is pretty broad: he can apply first aid, rough monsters up, rob them blind, and, if you stick true to the path of goonery, you might gain a keen business savvy so that monsters give you more money.

The Low-Level Goon is a bit of a troublemaker, so his field ability allows him to shake things up. Literally. He’ll shake trees, animals, innocent bystanders–basically anything to get his jollies. Do you like it when someone shakes you? Of course not. But, when you’re a Low-Level Goon, you’re too busy pretending to be tough to care about other people’s senses of equilibrium.

This is a real cultural episode. We learn things about Malaysia. And what people eat in Malaysia. And how Southeast Asia, when looked at correctly, looks like a cock and balls. And where Malaysia is on that cock and balls.

And we learn what bees do to flowers.

Finally, I start doing what I do best:

Stealing everything that isn’t nailed down. I steal a tasty apple out of a dogsquirrel’s mouth and make my brother eat some. I also steal a stuffed animal from a real animal.

Which is pretty damn funny because it’s going in the holes that makes things confusing. There’s a completely fine route along the outside. Which is hilarious, because that’s exactly what the goons wanted to happen.

Second, the spider web I went to get makes things Sticky. Sticky things have their agility lowered and take their turn later, which is great because Buck is a slowboy.

If those sounds of hyperconcentrated jubilation didn’t get you pumped, then you must not be a Happy Little Sunflower. And, that’s okay. Not everyone can be happy all the time. That takes a lot of dedication…and a fair amount of delusion.

For the Happy Little Sunflower, though, it’s genetic. It can’t help it. If you’re having a bad day, it’ll cheer you up with a happy little dance. Just don’t take it to work with you, cause it will NOT sit still.

You’re never in danger with a Happy Little Sunflower around. It’ll do its best to heal you when you’re sick, pick you up when you’re down, and when you’re surrounded by dark things that creep in the night, it’ll shine with sunlight to keep them at bay. Its relentless optimism can eventually be built up enough to make you gain more imagination experience in combat, which will allow you to build your different transformations that much faster, and its deep roots can pull nourishment from the ground, giving you a passive HP gain in battle.

In the field, the Happy Little Sunflower can burrow underground, allowing him to encourage strange plants to grow and find secret tunnels. Who knows what neat things you’ll find!

Special Guest: theVoiceofDog, who did the original Lisa the Painful LP. Now he runs a really popular Twitch stream at https://www.twitch.tv/thevoiceofdog where people love him and pay him money because he’s fun and his voice is the kind of resonance that reminds you of old leather, tobacco and playful spankings.

There’s one thing you need to know about this episode before it starts:

This episode rules.

Cutscene Commentary On

No Commentary

Some quick discussion:

This is where I fell in love with this game.

Yes, I will go shake Big Norm.

I made more of an effort to keep commentary towards the game and I brought back Scabs.